Welcome to the world of Tasita D'Mour :-)

A Little R & R

I wish I was back in that photo I’ve featured above, I was laying by the pool lapping up the sun with a glass of Rum bliss. That picture was taken a few months ago, I was on a gig in France in the beautiful Loire Valley. We had a good amount of chill time after our soundcheck as the show was the next day, the band was housed in a lovely château which we had all to ourselves, it was beautiful, the hosts were lovely people and very friendly. I love those shows where you get to pretend you are on holiday on your days off, it’s one of the many perks that you can enjoy in our business. It doesn’t always happen but when it does it’s glorious. 🙂

So today’s post is going to be a short one, I hope you don’t mind, too much, I’ve been doing admin, and working in the studio song-writing so I don’t feel like I have much to share.

I hope you’ve all been in good spirit’s getting back into the swing of life after the festive season. I finally got to the second week of January and thought, YES!! finally some time off, a week of rest and relaxation, but how wrong I was. The week started off quiet and I was enjoying taking it easy for a change, catching up with paperwork and admin then suddenly the phone started to ring, emails came in and the week was suddenly full, I’m not complaining it’s a blessing. I had a last minute recording for a TV show and a request to do a vocal for a Producer, and all had to be done that same week. I had initially planned to take a few days out to rest and then leisurely work on some songs so it threw the week into a bit of a spin, but at least I did get one day off, or was it two??

The last two weeks have been spent song-writing and recording, I had a back log of songs to write for clients I can never get any songs written in December as I’m so busy with live shows, so it’s almost impossible to write songs during the festive period. January and February are normally the quiet period in the music business so I like to use the time to recover from the mad Christmas period, re-focus, plan, write and record songs, also catch up on projects.

Song-writing

Creating songs for other people is always a little like baring your soul to someone or standing naked in front of a total stranger with nowhere to run or hide, you really open yourself up, it’s quite a vulnerable position to be in. I try to write lyrics that fit the music, or if there is no music then I write what I feel fits the idea and style requested and I try to follow my spirit. Lastly I record down my ideas, tweak it until I’m happy and send a rough demo to the client, and that’s the nail-biting part you have to wait to get a response, you watch your email lol and hope to get a positive response. Luckily the majority of my ideas are gladly welcomed by my clients so I’m happy, it’s great to get a positive response on a song you’ve written. On occasion a client may want something changed and then I just have to make some tweaks or have a chat with them to see what they would like me to change, I’m quite flexible and not precious about making changes, I don’t mind, it’s important for the client to be happy at the end of the day. So I always try to give the client what they want, it brings me much pleasure and fulfilment to make a client happy.

Recording in Logic

This is a screen shot of Logic, it’s the programme I use to record my vocals, and create basic song ideas. I’m still getting used to using this programme and learning how to use more of it’s features, but it’s pretty easy to use for someone like me who hasn’t had loads of training on the software. My recording needs are basic I leave the fancy stuff to Stuart he’s the expert on Logic.This is one of the songs I’ve worked on recently, I just finished this one this week. The client is happy and all vocal files have been sent off, project is completed from my end. I’ll post the finished song here once I get it back from the Record Label. On to the next song 🙂

My Thought For Today:

Always do your best and no matter how small the work or whether its something you are doing for free or being paid a whole lot for, just do it to the best of your ability. That’s my motto.